Inconsolable (29 page)

“What?” Foley sniffed. No breakfast, no lunch, very little sleep, she was starting to unravel. Nat was right, she might've been Alison, but it was so hard to imagine that.

“Drum isn't the first man she's accused of attacking her. She's got a history of assault accusations. Doesn't mean they didn't all happen, but it's not as clear-cut as it was yesterday.”

Foley's heart climbed so high in her throat it squatted on her voice box, her pitch was Chipmunks. “How many?”

“This makes five. But the real question is how many convictions.”

“How many?” she squeaked.

“None.”

She bent forward and pressed her face towards her knees. “Oh my God.”

Nat rubbed her back. “I don't think he did it. He might be the guy living on a cliff but it's Alison who's not mentally stable.”

Foley sat upright and shifted to face Nat. “You're getting this from the cops?”

“It's police records we're looking at. But you can thank Toby for digging it up and sharing it.”

Foley blinked in surprise. “He shared it?”

Nat nodded. “Happens more often than you think. Our papers aren't in competition.”

But this didn't gel with Drum's obvious guilt. He'd reacted as if he'd known this would happen, as if he'd been waiting to be caught. “What if he's guilty of something else?”

Nat frowned. “What are you worried about?”

Nat couldn't know Foley had seen Drum after she knew about the arrest warrant, unless she wanted to strain the friendship beyond any reasonable boundary. “He thinks he's done something bad. He carries this dreadful guilt. I was ready to believe it was about this, but this is not what put him in the cave. There's something else.”

“If there's a warrant in another state or he does have a record that's sealed for some reason, the cops will turn that up. Like I said, don't get too excited. An arrest over one thing can turn into a conviction on another.”

Despite that, there was enough of the flavour of relief in what Nat said to settle Foley's nausea. She phoned another update through to the office.

It was close on 5pm when Alison exited the building, again under escort. This time she kept her head down, turned away, and none of the shouted questions were answered.

After all the sitting around, Foley almost missed it. “What happened?”

Nat walked back to her side. “Dunno. But we're all on deadline.”

The sound of the doors opening again caught their attention. Nat moved forward, Foley's feet were fused to the pavement. Two cops walked out on either side of Drum. He looked for her, found her, then one of the cops walked in front of him and he was forced to turn aside, going with them to a police car and getting in the backseat. He wasn't handcuffed, but they were taking him away.

She looked for Nat, for an explanation, and found Toby. Any hint of pretence she was the lunch girl had long worn off. He made for her and the doors opened again, a cop walking out with a piece of paper in her hand. Toby dropped Foley like she was five-day-old fish and spun around.

The cop read a statement, formal words, cop speak, but all that mattered was the charges had been dropped. It was over and Drum was free.

She should've waited for Nat, but she'd waited for two miserable days. Foley bolted to her car, fingers crossed it would start; the parking ticket would be that much more painful if it didn't. It kicked over. There was only one place Drum could go that was safe enough. He'd know the cave wasn't; that his curiosity value would be too high.

She drove to the house on Tamar and parked outside. The entrance foyer light was on. She got out of the car and then her momentum stalled, her own battery dead. She'd effectively finished it with Drum the last time she was here, accusing him, backing him into a corner, then turning informant on him. It was enough to know he didn't attack anyone. It was enough to know he was safe.

If she went back inside the house she was starting things up again, she was asking for trouble. There was no guarantee he'd want to see her anyway, given she'd served him up to the cops. The smart thing to do was get back in the car. Nat would approve. Drum wasn't her job anymore and she'd been kidding herself about loving him, about him being part of her life.

The light in the house was a steady glow, the one around her heart flickered, faltered. She got back in the car and started bargaining with herself. If the car didn't start, she'd go inside, only for five minutes, just to see him, convince him to enrol in a program, get help, tell him the cave was going to be boarded up, wait for road service.

The car coughed and then did its best imitation of a Ferrari. So, that was it. She let a song play, no idea what it was, something about saying Geronimo. That might've been her motto, a catchphrase for a less ordinary life, for jumping in and taking a chance. Sitting in the car in the dark she didn't feel like an adventurer. She felt like a failure. A starving hungry, anxiety sick, love struck, career blocked, hesitant fool. And she didn't much like that collection of feelings.

She turned the engine off and got out of the car. She locked it and leaned against it. She was going into the house. She was going to find out what Drum's story was and then she was going to say goodbye properly with one of those sense resetting kisses, a last great one for the hell of it. Then she'd get back in the car, drive home, eat something so her stomach lining didn't dissolve, turn corrosive and acid burn through her body, and start thinking about how she could fix her work situation. That's what a smart person would do.

Bombs away.

She went to the gate and it clicked open before she pressed the buzzer. The front door opened before she got both feet on the tiled path. He stood in the doorway. Same rock star torn jeans, same shapeless grey t-shirt under a washed soft zippered hoodie, he was barefoot, the wind had been in his hair, he was clean-shaven, and his eyes were full of storm damage, but he smiled.

She was in his arms before the door closed; hands exploring him for knocks and dents, for injuries to his pride and conscience, and face tucked into his chest, breathing his welfare. His cheek went to the top of her head, his arms banded her ribs, a tremble in his body spoke to how the last few days had wounded him.

“I didn't know if you'd come.” That vibration was in his voice too and it raced under his skin, twitched in his hands.

“I didn't know if I should. We have to talk.”

He took a deep breath and his hold went slack, but only so he could bring her chin up. Her being there was no insurance and he knew it. “I'll tell you everything.”

She closed her eyes to block out the fear of what she'd learn, the certainty it would put her back in the car, back on her way to getting over him, and he kissed her; the gentlest, most hesitant press of dry, warm lips on hers. It should've been a comfort. He pulled back and she chased him, a hand to the back of his neck, because it wasn't enough, not near enough, to banish the terror of thinking he might be someone else, a man whose hands had hurt, whose lips had lied, whose body had harmed another.

This next kiss surfed currents of confused desire in both of them; a riptide of emotion compressed into open mouths and the touch of tongues. Drum leaned on the closed door and brought her closer, moving his hands on her body to anchor them, hunger in his kiss making desire swell in her till she drowned in the want for him, swept out beyond the place where good intentions and sound reason lived, to an island of blue calm where all that mattered was this swirling connection, this desperate attachment to him.

He broke the kiss, but not the ties. “You make me forget. You make me want, Foley. Want so many things I don't deserve.” He stroked her back, her arm, raising goosebumps with his words. “I don't want to let you go because I'm scared I'll never see you again. I can hardly believe you're here now.”

He traced a finger around her ear to cup the back of her head. He brought their foreheads together and closed his eyes. “Obsession, compulsion, they've wrecked me, they'll wreck me again over you.”

“Let me help you.” If she could help him, she could help herself, because it was impossible to tear away from him.

He brushed his nose against hers. “I saw you in that crowd and I thought you hated me, thought you'd come to make sure I paid.”

Her throat closed up, her eyes flooded. “I don't understand. I didn't want to believe it, but you didn't defend yourself. I had to … I had to.” How did she make him understand she couldn't protect him, she'd had to give him up.

He released her. “I understand.”

He left her rocking on her feet, cast adrift, seasick. “I didn't want to believe you'd hurt someone, but you …” it was hard to say it.

“I told you I did. I've hurt many people, but not like that, not like they thought, like I let you think.”

She put her palm on his chest. “That woman is sick. She has to be to accuse you, to accuse five other men of the same thing.”

He centred his palm over hers. “She needs help, it's not her fault.”

“No, you're confused, you're—”

She studied his face. He was sick too, she just didn't understand what made him this way, but then she understood so little about mental illnesses, and she didn't know him before whatever incident changed his life.

He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “Whatever you want to know I'll tell you, but I understand if it's too much, if you'd rather go.”

She shook her head. She needed to hear his story, she needed to stay close to him, feel him. Whatever made him this way, she'd help him get past it.

“Ah, Foley, I should send you away.”

She almost smiled, his voice had gone deep with longing, but it was edged with a remnant of the authority he wore so easily. He had dark smudges under his eyes, and the tension in his face put creases at their corners. He was unarmed and exhausted and utterly open to her. She put her hand to his face. She had doubted him, given him up and she loved him without reservation.

“Try it and see where that gets you.”

26: Payment

Of all the agonising moments of the last few days, watching Foley sit in her car with the engine running, knowing she was debating coming or going, was one of the worst. He'd managed to keep his identity contained, but there was nothing Drum could do to save himself from losing her, and he didn't know if he'd survive watching her drive away.

But now that she'd made the decision to be here with him, he'd give her all the information she needed to choose freely for herself.

She was pale, her face pinched from the stress he'd put her through. They both needed food, sleep, time, and he needed to find a way to make it all make sense to her.

They kissed again and it was almost enough to take the place of nutrition and rest, almost enough to be everything he needed.

“You're going to fall down if I don't feed you.” He wanted to protect her, but the time for that had passed, the only way to keep her safe was tell her everything.

He used her phone and called for a pizza. It made her laugh. She was the junk food nut, not him. It made him forget he needed to talk to her, it made him pull her close again and kiss her till neither of them wanted to remain standing.

He should've quit then, but her lips were red and swollen and her hair undone, and at some point she'd moved her hands under his shirt, against his skin, and it shut down the part of his brain responsible for thought and reason, left him with the motor skills to get rid of her coat and jacket, get them to the stairs where she could recline and he could brace above her, run his hands from knee to hip to waist and fill them with the swell of her ribs and the rise of her breasts.

The gate buzzer had been pressed more than once with impatience before either of them heard it. He left her to get the pizza and salad while he let himself in to the cellar to get wine. They could both do with a drink.

They picnicked on the stairs and he loved her for that, for not insisting on using the perfectly good kitchen upstairs. He would've done it for her, like he had the morning he'd made her breakfast. The rules didn't apply to her and she shouldn't be disadvantaged because of them. The food gave them back their separateness and he was going to need that too, because that was his future.

“Alison Villet spoke to me once.” He'd work backwards; lead Foley to where she needed to be to understand. Foley's tired eyes worried that so he went on. “In the park, the day I moved back to the cave. We were watching your Natalie interview the protest leader.”

“You were watching Walter. That's cheeky. He was trying to evict you.”

He ducked his head. So cheeky it was almost robbed him of his moment to explain things to Foley. “I didn't know her name. I didn't touch her and I didn't know you thought I'd hurt her when you came here that night.”

“I should've let you defend yourself.”

“But I acted like I was guilty and I am, Foley.” He sought her eyes again. “Just not of hurting Alison.”

“What did you do, Drum, who did you hurt?” This was the right question and the right time to answer her.

He looked away. He could rollcall the three hundred and eighty-seven names. He could tell her where each of those people lived, which countries, which suburbs, who their families were and when their lives had been disrupted. “I hurt people like Alison and their families. People who had reason to trust me.”

“Okay, you're scaring me.” Foley leaned back against the stair railing. That wasn't near enough distance from what he was.

“I'm not who you think I am. I'm not a penniless hobo.”

She waved a pizza crust at him. “You mean I paid for pizza and you can afford to replace this bottle of wine?” She was trying to joke, to make this easier for him, but her face showed how tenuous her hold on that was.